Ideal Image Wins 2015 Jungle Dawn Classic With Pike

Perth’s No. 1 hoop William Pike enjoyed a stellar day of racing and winning at Ascot Racecourse for Kingston Town Classic Day including the Jungle Dawn Classic 2015 victory aboard the short priced favourite Ideal Image.

Pike’s day at the races for the final Group 1 race meeting of 2015 was no doubt highlighted by the historical Group 1 Kingston Town Classic (1800m) win on Grant Williams’ undefeated filly Perfect Reflection.

He also won the first on another Williams-trained filly Arcadia Dream in the Listed Aquanita Stakes (1800m) and the $100,000 Listed Jungle Dawn Classic (1400m) aboard the Adam Durrant-trained Ideal Image to make it a winning triple on the card.

Drawn a treat in barrier one in the nine starter Jungle Dawn Classic field this year, Durrant’s four-year-old daughter of More Than Ready Ideal Image jumped as the $2.05 top fancy.

A winner of four of her 11 starts before making it five from a dozen on the weekend, the in-form mare came off a second to Sheidel in the Listed Jungle Mist Classic (1200m) and was able to go one better stepping up to the 1400m.

She had won one of her previous two starts at the distance and further franked the form of the Jungle Mist with the winner Sheidel also posting a stakes victory on Saturday in the $100,000 Listed R.S. Crawford Stakes (1000m).

In the Jungle Dawn Ideal Image had three-quarters of a length to spare over the Alan Mathews-trained runner-up Cool Trade ($4.40), coming off an 11th to Buffering in the Group 1 Winterbottom Stakes (1200m) from November 21, while Neville Parnham’s Jungle Mist last placed five-year-old Vital Importance ($19) added the value in third 1.5 lengths off the winner.

Pike gave the Bob Peters-owned mare the ideal run throughout the black-type feature, the second leg of the fillies-and-mares’ Perth Summer Racing Carnival series, sitting just on the tail of the frontrunner and eventual second placed Cool Trade.

With the race run on a Soft (7), rain-affected track, Ideal Image and the rest of the Jungle Dawn Classic filed avoided the rail and while taking a little longer than expected to wind up on the straight she lifted late to make it two-from-two on Soft tracks.

Pike was impressed with the mare’s efforts in what he described as a class field.

“It was a good effort, Cool Trade is no slouch,” he told Perth Racing.

“It’s hard to get past a horse like that.”

The likely next-up option for Ideal Image is a run back at the track on CB Cox Stakes Day, December 19, in the $100,000 Listed Starstruck Classic (1600m) in an open-gender field where she will be shooting for her first win over a mile.

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